Group Policy Connundrum - Stick with it, its confusing!!!

["Jon Petre" <jono-31 () hotmail co uk>]

Hello List,

I have an issue at a customers site regarding GP that goes a little like 
this:

I have created a policy named no internet. I have created a security group 
named the same. In this group are so many users based across the country 
that I want to limit the internet usage, therefore I have created a false 
proxy @ 0.0.0.0 that all their internet use has to pass through. This gives 
the expected result where no pages are displayed regardless of which site 
the user goes to. I have also created some exceptions for this policy, which 
do not use the proxy, i.e.

www.homepageofcompany.com, www.siteiwanttoallow.com, 
www.theusercangohere.co.uk.

This is done by setting the 'user configuration > Internet Explorer > 
Connection > Proxy Settings > Exceptions'. The desired output is that user's 
logon and can access these sites, but any other non specified site wont 
work.

----I hope this makes sense so far----

Then by setting the 'Admin Template > Windows Components > Internet Explorer 
> Disable Changing Proxy Settings' to enabled effectively grays out the 
proxy settings in internet explorer and stops the user from altering the 
settings.

OK, this is where the issues start. When I toggle the 'Admin Template > 
Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Disable Changing Proxy Settings' 
between enable and disable, and update the policy on the local machine via 
GPUPDATE, or even from the server by forcing the update, everything works 
and the proxy is enabled and disabled as specified.

However, when I try to make changes to  any part of the user config, the 
policy does not seem to initialise. What I mean is any sites I add to the 
exception list do not appear and the end result is the user can not access 
any sites at all. I have logged on and off, and re-booted workstation all to 
no effect.

Any suggestions on why the user configuration portion of the Group Policy 
does not work would be much appreciated. I am sure all the permissions are 
set correctly, i.e. the apply GP settings, read settings etc. If they 
wasn't, then surely no part of the policy would work, would it?

TIA,

Jono

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